


Outreach

by Prochytes



Category: Bedlam (TV), Being Human
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-29
Updated: 2011-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-20 20:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bedlam needs to remember how to be a sanctuary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outreach

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the S3 finale of Being Human and (in incidental dialogue) for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Small spoilers for Bedlam 1x01. Originally posted on LJ in 2011.

The first few times, Jed saw her only from a distance. Bedlam did not exactly want for winding passageways. It was at the other ends of these that he began to spot her, dark hair bouncing as she marched purposefully across the limits of his vision.

  

The hair (and, if Jed was honest, the legs, which were hard to miss) initially made him think of Molly, who sometimes mooched around the far reaches of the building when her appetite for daytime television was sated. Closer up, he realized his error, even before he caught sight of the woman’s face. She was taller and rangier than Molly, who, anyway, would not be seen dead wearing that much grey.   

 

“Seen dead”. Right.

 

Therein lay the other big difference between this girl and Molly. Jed sighed, and put aside his plans for the morning’s maintenance.

 

***

 

Jed had never found a tactful way of breaking the bad news. At least he did not say it with bell, book, and candle.

 

“You’re dead,” he told her.

 

She snorted. “Well, obviously. And Harry beats Voldemort. What page are _you_ on, exactly?”

 

Jed blinked. The ghost’s mouth dropped open in mortification: “You did know already, didn’t you? That Harry beats Voldemort?”

 

Jed was floundering. “Umm....”

 

“Only I’ve seen how worked up some people can get about things like that. My friend George wouldn’t talk to me for a week after I gave away how _Heroes_ ended.”

 

“It’s fine. Really.” Jed’s mind was racing. None of this made sense. She did not have The Eyes, for one thing. Ghosts that had accepted what they were, in Jed’s experience, always regarded you with the same obsidian gaze. This woman’s eyes, narrowed now as if in sudden thought, looked entirely human. 

 

“Wait a minute... You can see me, can’t you?”

 

“Yes.” Jed gratefully jumped at the chance to recover some dialectical ground. “What page are _you_ on?”

 

The ghost ignored the sarcasm. “Full moon last night, but you’re already up. Sunny today,” she glanced at the uncurtained window beside them, “but you’re not wincing. You’re human.”

 

“Last time I checked...”

 

“George needs to know about you. What’s your phone-number?”

 

Jed raised his eyebrows. The ghost flushed. “Sorry. That came out wrong. I’m not trying to pull you or anything. I mean: as if. Er. Not that I’m saying you aren’t dishy, because you _definitely_ are, but we haven’t even been introduced – I’m Annie, by the way...”

 

“Jed. Jed Harper.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Jed.” The ghost – Annie – stuck out her hand. Arm and body formed the stiff right angle of someone to whom handshakes did not come naturally. Jed bemusedly accepted her fingers, careful not to apply any pressure of his own. Annie’s grasp was like the memory of contact – the feeling on your cheek the moment after you lift your head from a pillow. “Look: I’m in the middle of something right now. But we should talk, later. Could I have that number, please?”

 

Jed hesitated for a moment, then told her. After all, she would not be the only ghost that knew his number. Somehow Annie’s need to ask cheered him up a little. At least he was not, as he had sometimes assumed, in the _Yellow Pages_ on the Other Side.

 

Annie repeated the number to herself until she had apparently satisfied herself that she had it by heart. (Jed almost suggested that she write it down, but noted the problems with that proposition just in time.) Then she set off down the corridor at a brisk pace. She was almost at the end before Jed remembered the question that he usually asked at the outset.

 

“Why are you here?”

 

The answer floated back to him as the shadows swallowed her. “Spreading the word, Jed. Spreading the word.”

 

***

 

It was almost noon before he found Annie again, sitting on a balustrade in the courtyard. As she lifted her head at his approach, he could see that her upper lip was cut and bleeding.

 

“Hello, Jed. Has George called you yet?”

 

“No.”

 

“Sleepyhead. He can be a bit slow to get going in the morning, this time of the month.”

 

He gestured at her face. “You’re hurt.”

 

“It’s nothing.” She dabbed at her mouth with the sleeve of her cardigan. “I was careless. It won’t happen again.”

 

“I didn’t think anything could harm a ghost.”

 

“Not much _living_ can harm a ghost. We can slap one another around just fine.”

 

“I see.” Jed felt a chill at the thought of Annie in Bedlam. He imagined a living woman breezing through Broadmoor. “Is it safe for you to be here, Annie?”

 

“Not very. I can take care of myself, though. In ectoplasmic terms, I’m actually a bit tasty.” Annie brought her shoulders forward into a hunch and jutted out her lower lip. She looked about as much like Ray Winstone as lay within the bounds of possibility for someone skinny, female, and dead. “Most of the poor people I’ve found in this place are too far gone to be a threat to me.”

 

“You’re not attached to Bedlam, then?”

 

“No. Just visiting.”

 

“When did you die? The Eighties?”

 

Annie glared at him. “Excuse me?”

 

Jed sensed the shape of his mistake, but plunged on regardless: “Well, the leggings... the hair...”

 

“Are you saying I have Eighties Hair?”

 

“Er...”

 

“It’s not my fault that it’s got volume, you know. And I don’t see how you think you can throw the first stone, Captain Stubble.”

 

Jed cast around desperately for a less contentious topic.“You said that you’re here to spread the word.”

 

“I am.”

 

“How does that work, exactly? Most people can’t even see you.”

 

“I haven’t come here for the living, Jed.”

 

Jed opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a tinny cacophony from his pocket.

 

“That will be George. We’ll speak again after you’ve taken that.”

 

***

 

George (Jed quickly decided) would get along famously with Ryan. His list of prepared questions, some expected (“Name?” “Occupation?” “D. O. B.?”), others less so (“You are in an unanticipated combat situation, and need a weapon. Chair or plant?”), was put on hold for a period of several minutes while he expostulated on the inequities of broadband provision in the Vale of Glamorgan. He also seemed to fighting off a terrible hangover, as well as inaudible but clearly sarcastic comments from someone called Nina.

 

 When George finally ended the call, Jed looked up to find Annie at his side once more.

 

“I suppose there was a point to all of that?”

 

“George is putting together a database of people like you. He was going to call it a ‘register’, but Nina pointed out that that would make you sound like kiddy-fiddlers. Don’t worry,” she added hastily, seeing Jed’s expression, “about Data Protection or stuff like that. George subscribes to Amnesty. It’s just that when... when things kick off, people who can talk to _everyone_ will become very important.”

 

“What’s going on, Annie? What’s coming that’s so big a houseful of half—mad ghosts has to be warned about it?”

 

“War.” Annie’s gaze was steady. “War is coming. The living and the dead are both under attack from those who are neither. And places like this... Let’s just say that Bedlam needs to remember how to be a sanctuary.”

 

“Why?” Jed thought about all the times that the dead had twirled Kate and Ryan and Molly and himself like marionettes. His hand tightened on his ’phone. “Why should we be foot-soldiers in your war? You’re dead already. It’s not as though youhave anything to lose.”

 

“Because we don’t have a choice.” Annie stepped in. The look in her eyes, now, was worse than any obsidian. “I’d rather you didn’t lecture me on loss.”

 

Jed bit his lip. “I’m sorry. It’s just....”

 

Annie’s expression softened. “I understand. It isn’t easy, having your gift. And they do appreciate it. Not all the people here are as mad as the ones you see. The ones who aren’t... they’ve told me that they’re grateful for what you do.”

 

Jed cleared his throat. “I’m glad.”

 

“Except when you say they dropped dead on the set of _Dallas_ , of course.”

 

“You’re not going to forgive me for that, are you?”

 

“The dead have long memories, Jed Harper. It’s our substitute for Lotto Bingo.”

 

Jed smiled. “I take it that you’ll be moving on soon? Spreading the word?”

 

“Yes. Farewell to Bedlam Heights. Honestly. Did your foster-uncle seriously think that people would buy apartments here?”

 

Jed shrugged. “It’s what he does. He’s into real estate.”

 

“Tricky market. And if you ask me, the bottom’s going to fall out of it pretty soon.” Annie stood up, looking back at the house. She shivered. “He might want to move into garlic futures.”

 

  
FINIS   



End file.
